


I Love You

by Schediaphilia



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Incest, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Mentions of Character Death, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Sex Scenes that aren't Porn, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:35:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6425998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schediaphilia/pseuds/Schediaphilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick was a mystery. Morty just couldn’t wrap his head around what his grandfather was thinking at any point in time. He knew the guy didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but he just didn’t know what questions would arouse his irritation. Morty felt like he had to walk on glass to keep Rick from being annoyed with him. And the last thing Morty wanted was for Rick to be annoyed with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fic for this fandom and ship. This isn't a happy fic by any means.

Rick was a mystery. Morty just couldn’t wrap his head around what his grandfather was thinking at any point in time. He knew the guy didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but he just didn’t know what questions would arouse his irritation. Morty felt like he had to walk on glass to keep Rick from being annoyed with him. And the last thing Morty wanted was for Rick to be annoyed with him.

But it happened regardless of Morty’s wishes. Morty knew well he wasn’t as smart as his sister and mother, and he knew damn well he could never dream of being as smart as Rick. But it still hurt. Morty was curious and while he tried to learn on the rare chances Rick explained something to him, it felt like his brain was a sieve. As if all of the things he wanted to remembered got caught and left behind.

So naturally it was frustrating. So frustrating that Morty couldn’t help lashing out at Rick every now and again for that one insult that broke the camel’s back.

“I’m sick of it Rick!” Morty found himself yelling, almost surprised by his own aggression.

“L-look, you little shit, I don’t- I don’t have time to explain crystal infraction ionization to you. I would be here all day!” Rick didn’t even look that perturbed, which pissed Morty off even more.

Didn’t Rick understand that Morty just wanted to know more about his grandfather? That all he wanted was to have more in common? He tried to hold back the burning he felt in his eyes, sniffing. He turned, ready to stalk out of the garage and to his room.

“Mo-Morty, stop being such a fucking-” Rick’s voice stopped as Morty neared the door, “Jesus Christ, are you crying?”

Morty was flushed with anger. He could already hear the snide laughter and he braced himself, hand on the doorknob to withstand another bout of humiliation.

What he didn’t expect was a hand on his shoulder.

“H-hey. Are you all right?”

Morty was stunned. It was rare for Rick to show concern. Morty froze, unsure on how to handle Rick’s response. Maybe Rick understood for once? He couldn’t be sure.

The man behind him patted his hair a bit, seemingly unsure on what to say.

“You’re mad at me, huh, Morty?”

Morty didn’t more or say anything, only sniffed.

Rick pulled Morty, making Morty face him.

“Punch me.”

Morty gaped, wiping tears from his eyes indignantly.

“Rick! I’m- I’m not going to pu-punch-”

“Look, I don’t know what sort of weird teen bullshit you’re going through. Ju-just beat me up so we can move past this shit, okay?” Rick’s voice was back to his normal smart-ass cadence.

Morty couldn’t tell if he was being serious, so he assumed he was fucking with him again.

“That’s not funny, Rick!” Morty pushed him, harder than he wanted to.

“Yeah, that’s it Morty! Le-let out all your teenage rage!” Rick bounced back up, a stupid fucking smile on his face.

Morty laughed then, overwhelmed by the ridiculousness of the scene.

“We okay now?” Rick held out his arms, smile still in place.

Morty sniffled and nodded, though he wasn’t too sure if they were _really_ okay. Morty knew that sometimes just because you laughed didn’t mean you were happy, but it was a lot easier to pretend and, honestly, he didn’t want to disappoint his grandpa. Again.

Morty received a pat on his shoulder, almost as a prize for his obedience in bowing his building discontent. Morty felt so happy at the smile Rick gave him that he found himself forgetting he had even asked about ionizing crystal infractions- whatever those were- at all. The smiles slowly faded throughout the coming hours before Rick returned to his normal self the following day.

That’s how it always was. Morty would finally snap at Rick and Rick would make him laugh and Morty would pretend it was okay, that he was okay. To say it was confusing was an understatement, but he was so used to it by now. He was so used to being treated like nothing until he did something for Rick, the whiplash of feeling affection and praise he so desperately craves deflating any argument he might’ve had on his tongue immediately.

 

It had repeated to many times without comment that Morty couldn’t believe that the following night a drunk Rick found his way into his bedroom, and not for an adventure. But to _talk_.

Morty voiced his confusion with a “Huh?”

“You-you really- you’re really fucking-” Rick paused to make an urp noise, “Easy to manipulate, you know, right?”

Morty stared stunned. He had no idea what had brought this on. Manipulated? By who? When? His mind jumped to the obvious conclusion and he rejected it outright.

“You’re lucky I’m not a fucking- a fucking _creep_ Morty. God, you- you’re the pedophiles fucking dream.”

Morty tried to keep his breath steady despite feeling anxiety overriding his sense, “Pedophile?”

“You’re so fucking easy Mo-Morty! I could probably get you to suck my dick for a pat on the head, and you’d probably have a fucking smile on your face while doing it!”

Morty was beginning to fade out of reality, realizing the man sitting on the edge of his bed obviously wasn’t in his right mind right now.

“But you’re not.” Morty pointed out.

“How do you know?” Rick quipped, taking another gulp from his flask. “Do you know how many Ricks would hurt you, Morty?”

Morty’s heart jumped at that. God he’d…. He’d never even remotely considered that possibility. So that’s what brought this on? He was worried about him?

“Then…” Morty trailed off, unsure what to say. “Then it’s a good thing I have you and not some creepo, huh?” Morty put on a fake laugh, trying to lighten the situation.

Rick was silent for awhile longer than normal. Morty tried to write it off as drunken listlessness and not guiltiness.

“Yeah. I could be like, a se-serial killer… or something.” Rick was muttering now. Morty was putting the pieces together in his head. Paranoid episodes when Rick was particularly inebriated wasn’t that uncommon. Morty could guess why Rick would be paranoid about this particular thing, though he didn’t want to think about it.

“G-geez Rick. Why are you…” Morty struggled to find words, curling up under his blanket, “What made you suddenly worry about this?”

Rick didn’t respond and for a moment Morty though he hadn’t heard him.

“Would you even notice if someone else replaced me?” Rick nearly whispered.

“Of course I would!” Morty replied, immediately sure. But then he thought about it more. He thought about the Ricks he’d seen at the citadel. For the most part they all looked the same… but surely he’d know _his_ Rick, right?

Rick rubbed his hair back, a strange sniffling noise coming from him.

Was… was he crying?

“Thanks, Morty. But n-no. You wouldn’t.” Rick answered, voice sounding weak.

“And if something-something happens to me, I’m sorry.” Rick muttered, sounding all for the world like he was dying right now or something.

“Wh-whoa. Calm down, man. What are-what are the odds of some Rick killing another Rick and… doing weird things to his Morty?” Morty tried to be rational when his grandfather so clearly wasn’t being so.

Rick seemed a bit placated by that answer.

“You scare me Morty.” Rick was mumbling again, looking half-dead, arms hanging uselessly as he stared at the wall. He hadn’t looked at him once during this.

“Scare you?”

“You’re too trusting,” was Rick’s only answer.

Morty found himself wondering. If Rick… came onto him, surely he’d react appropriately? He wasn’t that attention starved. Even if it felt good to be told how good he’d done, surely he’d… Well, it was better not to think about it. And anyway, why was Rick so worried about being “replaced”? Surely as a Morty he was far more replaceable.

“Je-jesus, Morty,” Rick’s surprised voice took him out of his rather dark thoughts of his own mortality, “we-were you sleeping _nude_?” It seemed Rick had finally turned his head to look at him.

Morty blinked. He looked down. He briefly remembered his pre-sleep fap. He quickly notice his blanket had slipped down to a very nearly unacceptable level during his sitting up and talking. He was just too involved in Rick’s outburst and the subsequent emotional baggage to even allow himself to notice.

“Damn, you really are lucky I’m not a- I’m not a pedophile,” Rick had long pulled his gaze away, “You’re probably one ‘good boy’ away from getting reamed,” Rick mumbled the last part almost too lightly for Morty to hear it. And it pissed him off. He could handle being told once he was desperate for attention, especially in his grandfather’s clearly not-so-lucid state, but twice was grating on him.

“I am not!” Morty pulled his blanket up to his chest in indignation.

“Oh yeah, do that, look at innocent and shy that’ll-that’ll really stop him, Morty,” Rick sarcastically replied upon seeing Morty blushing and covering himself.

“Stop it! I wouldn’t… what makes you think I would… Look, I’m not that easy!” Morty fumed despite his blush and near inability to breathe properly.

Rick was looking at him now and it was so much worse. He could see his disbelief, his mild disgust. He could see him _roll his eyes_ a “yeah right” if he’d ever seen one. It was one thing to worry about his safety. It was another to basically imply he was a slut and would do anything for a bit of attention, and it was a whole ‘nother thing to act passive aggressive when he contested it.

Morty finally reached a breaking point. After putting up with Rick’s attitude for so long, dealing with Rick’s platitudes, and now this all of a sudden. It pissed him the fuck off. His rage welled up into one solidified mass in his chest as he wailed a loud groan of frustration.

“Fuck you!”

“Yeah, you’d probably like that you little- you little slut!” Rick yelled in return.

“Shut the hell up, Rick!” Morty was seething but unable to move, his own insecurity keeping him glued under the covers. Rick did as he asked, giving Morty time to think and calm down a bit.

“You asshole- everyone can hear us!” Morty whispered, though that ship had sailed awhile back.

“No, they can’t,” Rick replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“What do you-you mean they can’t we were just-just yelling of course they-”

“I put a sound modulation device on the door when I came in,” Rick rolled his eyes again which made Morty’s eyes narrow.

“What the hell? Why?”

“Don’t you get it Morty?” Rick gave Morty a look like he was a fucking idiot- which wasn’t that much different from the look he normally gave him when he asked a ‘stupid question’. Rick had a certain devil-may-care air about him, far too emotional and drunk to care anymore and yet he still opened his mouth and hesitated.

“I’m- I’m…” Rick deflated. “I’m really gross, Morty.”

A thousand question rang through Morty’s head but all he said was an angry “What?”

“When… When my Morty died…. I looked for a universe where… Where a Rick had died without a Morty knowing.”

Morty’s heart absolutely stopped, he was sure of it, this couldn’t be happening and he sure as hell didn’t expect it.

“I’m… I’m not your real Rick, Morty. I’ve tried… I’ve tried so hard to treat you as my own but… I guess a part of me knows you’re not... “

“Stop.”

Rick jerked his head up. Morty has his arms crossed across his chest. He could barely breathe. The room was spinning. His heart was in his throat.

“I don’t care. Stop. I don’t want to know.”

Rick made that weird sniffing noise again and looked down.

Morty was trying his best not to absolutely lose it. He counted as carefully as he could- one two three four breathe in, one two three four five, breathe out- but he still found himself desperately holding onto the edge of reality and dissociated crisis.

“Why are you even telling me this?” Morty didn’t know whether he asked it or not, but yet he found it being said, he heard it with his own ears.

“I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m even still a-alive. Should’ve offed myself the moment I-”

“Don’t. Seriously. Don’t. I can’t… I can’t do this.” Morty was only holding off the inevitable now. Trying to hold back ugly tears, nails scratching up and down his arms, rocking back and forth, writhing, everything as his mind sped headfirst into a world class panic attack.

“Why did you have to tell me this?” Morty was feeling numb, teetering on the edge of a total disaster, enraged he was brought to this point, “I didn’t need to know. I could’ve been happy- I could’ve been- Oh god,” Morty broke into a wail.

“God, if you want to fuck me just say it, _not this_ ,” Morty thought of Rick, _his_ Rick, how he died, all of the possibilities, and when had it happened? How had he not noticed? He… he was horrible. He didn’t even notice someone replacing his damn grandfather. He didn’t even know…. He didn’t….

“Jesus Christ, are you crying?” Morty could barely process anything but the terror in his chest, the voice next to his face barely phasing him. He couldn’t stop shaking, he couldn’t stop, he just couldn’t, he couldn’t see anything, anything, just shaking and crying “Oh god” as if if he cried it out enough God himself would come down and amend the situation. But despite the whispers quickly building from a dozen to fifty, no such miracle came. Morty felt like he really and honestly was going to throw up, but nothing came out, even as he curled his nails down his arms, drowning himself into his pillow.

He could barely process the arms around him, petting his hair, whispering. He had no idea what. But there was something there. If his heart stopped trying to beat out of his chest, maybe he could process what the hell he was saying.

“You’re going to- to make yourself sick, Morty.”

He already was sick. In fact, Morty was sure it was terminal. He was going to die here, blood under his fingernails and whispering to a god he wasn’t fully sure he even believed in like it was the only thing he believed in.

“It’ll be all right… Shhhh…”

Morty found himself calming a little when Rick pulled his hands away from his arms, instead holding his hands in his own and squeezing. Morty’s eyes met Rick’s and for a second he felt a terrible spike back into terror as he remembered this wasn’t… And then he decided he didn’t care. He couldn’t. He couldn’t keep sane and accept what Rick said as the truth. So he smiled, sniffling, manic.

“Boy, Rick, that was a funny joke,” Morty laughed, “You- you really got me.”

Rick seemed shocked for a moment, stock still, hands clenching tight around his. Deciding on how to respond. He had an out. He had an out from completely destroying their relationship in a twenty minute period he’d been guiltily saving up.

“Yeah, I got you,” he sounded deflated, his smile not even a half-attempt at trying. “You really fell for it.”

Morty looked down at his hands and Rick awkwardly released them.

“Uhm… yeah so…” Morty mumbled, completely having convinced himself it was a lie.

“Back to bed,” Rick answered monotonously as he took away the modulation device on his way out without fanfare.

 

Morty was proud of himself because he lasted a whole week without having a mental breakdown. He had only 20 scars on his arms, and only the blood of 20 scars dried under his fingernails as he woke up. Rick had stopped taking him on adventures. Morty didn’t understand why. It was just a joke he played on him. His mind considered the alternative- he felt terror rising in his chest- and he pushed it down. Of course he know. It’d be impossible not to. But he’d made the conscious decision to just not think about it. Morty spent the rest of the morning imagining himself dragging the memory into a recycling bin and deleting it. He repeated this until well into the afternoon, finally feeling satisfied he had “deleted” it. Of course, he found himself having to do that every day until he found it beaten down enough to satisfy him.

Morty got up the courage to go into the garage today.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in ‘school’?” Rick was deriding him as usual. If Morty just focused he could pretend everything was normal- and Morty liked pretending.

“No one really checks if I go. Plus I wasn’t… feeling good. Y’know?” Morty answered as casually as possible as he eyed the weird device Rick was poring over. Yup, couldn’t make any sense of it. But he wasn’t about to ask about it. Last time he’d- deletedeletedeletedele-

“Wha-what responsible parents.” Rick quipped sarcastically.

Morty shrugged, glad to be taken out of his loop but tried to play it off.

“Can you hand me a flathead screwdriver?”

Morty’s ears perked, absolutely thrilled to do something instead of talk. Yes please, more doing, less thinking.

“One-one flathead screwdriver coming right up!” Morty replied over enthusiastically, quickly fulfilling his task as Rick mumbled a “Thanks”.  

Rick turned to address him, which surprised Morty. Please, no more talking just-

“You know. You’re a pretty good kid Morty.”

Okay he could make an exception for compliments. Even knowing what Rick had said it still felt good. Morty couldn’t deny that. Morty spent his entire life being told he wasn’t good enough, that he was stupid, even by his own parents. He couldn’t deny the sheer joy and pride at being told he was enough for once.

“You really are such a good boy for grandpa, y’know that?”

And it was addictive as hell. Morty’s heart was thumping with a mixture of adrenaline and excitement.

“You- you really mean that, Rick?”

“Of-of course I do. You’re my grandson, Morty,” he smiled at him, hook, line, “I love you.”

Sinker.

Morty tried not to turn into a puddle of mush on the floor.

“W-wow, Rick,” Morty look stunned. He let the warm feelings well up in his chest, wanting to drown in it until he died, “I love you too.”

Morty tried not to think about how Rick’s eyes didn’t match his smile. He tried not to think of the night a week prior when Rick said, “Would you do anything for me?”

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter as Rick pulled him close and lifted him onto his workbench, it didn’t matter as Morty said “Yeah,” as if he was trained for this explicit purpose.  “Anything.”

His eyes slid closed as hot lips grazed his own. He knew he should’ve pretended to be shocked, he could’ve even pretended to revulsed, but he was at the point feeling anything even remotely positive outweighed the constant terror just one stray thought away from tearing through his gut. So he accepted the primal stimuli, the attention he was getting emotionally and physically.

Rick pulled away, making Morty to panic slightly, Morty leaning in to deepen the kiss. This was a nice distraction. This worked. More doing, less thinking. He heard a noise and wasn’t sure where it came from.

“G-god, you sound delicious, Morty,” Rick whispered hotly into his ear. So he had made that noise. If it made Rick keep saying things like that, Morty didn’t care. He could stay like this forever as far as he was concerned. Drunken from the tainted bliss, he stared as Rick unbuckled his pants. The bad thoughts were clamoring in the back of his mind but Rick’s hand was in his hair, stroking his head gently.

“I’d be really g-grateful if you helped me with this,” Rick said with a smile, his eyes off somewhere else, perhaps somewhere where he wasn’t himself.

Morty didn’t need more context to know as he pushed himself off the workstation to kneel on the floor. Morty like the sound of grateful. Morty couldn’t imagine Rick being grateful for anyone. But he could be for Morty, and he loved Morty.

Morty found himself smiling as Rick’s erection slipped into his mouth, the teen sucking experimentally. Rick groaned in appreciation, leaning over him to support himself on the workstation Morty was kneeling in front of, Rick looking down and getting a good eyeful of Morty on his dick.

“G-god, that’s it baby. Just like that,” Rick moaned at one particularly hard suck Morty tried.

Morty was instantly energized, repeating the action, needing more of Rick’s approval. Morty kept sucking, even when his mouth began to ache, even when Rick began to thrust in and out.

“You’re such a good boy for grandpa,” Rick moaned in a near whisper, as if the phrase itself was too dirty for even him to speak it, “Such a good fucking boy.”

Morty melted. He moaned around Rick’s dick, lapped at him as he throbbed inside his mouth. His eyes glazed over as a warmth fell over his mind, Rick only lasted a few more thrusts before his seed shot into Morty’s mouth. He swallowed on instinct alone as Rick pulled away, hands playing with his hair.

Morty smiled up at Rick, a smile on his face despite the remnants of cum he couldn’t get down around his lips.

 


End file.
